


Oak / Hawthorn / Birch / Willow

by Anonymous



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Mutual Pining, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-19 03:08:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29868225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: “What are you afraid of?” // “I’m not afraid of anything.”
Relationships: Daphne Greengrass/Fred Weasley
Kudos: 8
Collections: 2021 DBQ Round One: Boggart





	Oak / Hawthorn / Birch / Willow

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [TheSlytherinCabal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSlytherinCabal/pseuds/TheSlytherinCabal) in the [DBQ2021Round1](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/DBQ2021Round1) collection. 



> Disclaimer: The characters do not belong to me but are the property of J.K.R. and Warner Bros. No copyright infringement is intended. The theme for this round of the competition was Boggart and my chosen pairing was Daphne Greengrass/Fred Weasley. Comments/Reviews are encouraged by The Slytherin Cabal's Admin Team on all stories in Death By Quill, but comments left by readers are set to be moderated by story authors until the end of the competition in order to protect participants' anonymity. Thank you to my beta for their time and help.

The first time he asks her, they’re children. Her parents host a luncheon at their country estate, and for one blissful afternoon, the children of attending lords and ladies are allowed to act their age. They splash through the shallow pond, run barefoot over the soft grass, climb the gnarled oak trees in the woods.

The woods are where he finds her. She grins down at him, bare feet swinging in a most unladylike fashion from either side of a mossy branch.

“How’d you find me?”

He climbs easily, ginger hair coming loose from the short queue at his nape. He stops just below her, then reaches up to tickle the arches of her feet. “Please, Daph. I could find you anywhere.”

“Stop, Fred!” she laughs.

“I’m George.”

“You’re not,” she says, voice haughty with certainty. “I can tell.”

He smirks as he grasps her foot and gives it a gentle tug. She shrieks.

“What are you afraid of?” His words are teasing, full of the humor he and his twin brother are notorious for.

She lifts her arms above her head. Her hair has fallen out of its ribbons, and cascades down her back like a golden waterfall. “I’m not afraid of anything.”

It’s the truth.

* * *

  
The next time he asks, they’re older.

She’s received a tear-stained letter from her dearest friend, Pansy. Her father, the Earl of Parkwood, has signed a marriage contract with the Marquess of Waterford, a man old enough to be Pansy’s father. The letter haunts Daphne; makes her truly understand, for the first time, her own responsibilities as the eldest daughter of a duke.

She creeps into her father’s office, meekly standing by the fireplace until he acknowledges her existence. His Grace, the Duke of Greenwich, is an imposing man, with dark hair and a darker mood. He finally grunts at her, granting her permission to speak.

“Hello, Father,” she begins.

He doesn’t lift his eyes from the ledger book he’s reading.

'I’ve received a letter from Lady Pansy,” she says, inching toward him. Her toes hit the edge of the Persian rug, and she stops. “She is to be married.”

He hums. “Felicitations.”

“Am I to be married soon, Father?”

“Of course you are. You’re what—sixteen?”

“Astoria’s sixteen. I’m eighteen.” Her fingers twist in her muslin skirts. “Will I be allowed to have any say in the matter?”

He finally looks up at her. His mouth presses into a thin line, brows lowering in disapproval. “You will not.” His gaze returns to the ledger, dismissing her.

She fights the tremble in her lower lip. Manages to walk slowly to the door, down the hall, through the kitchens, into the garden.

Then she flees.

She runs to Fred, slippered feet thundering up the small dirt lane to his family’s cottage. She doesn’t think about why she needs to see him, only knows that she _does._

She finds him in the tall marsh reeds out back, throwing stones into the murky water. His face lights with surprise when he sees her, eyes traveling down the front of her gown and then back up to her face. A faint blush colors his cheeks, blending with his freckles and making him look much younger than his twenty years.

They sit beneath a hawthorn tree in his back garden. They can hear raised voices inside the cottage: sounds of his brothers and sister bickering. Daphne finds she prefers them to the cold silences and stony glares she’s grown accustomed to in her family’s manor.

When she tells him the reason for her visit, shares her fears about being forced into a loveless marriage, his demeanor changes. The mischievous sparkle fades from his eyes, the smile melts off his face, his jaw sets.

“I won’t let him do it. Won’t let him marry you off to some old lecher.”

“How will you stop him?”

“I’ll marry you myself.”

She feels a warm, swooping sensation in her belly at the thought of being Fred’s wife. A tear spills over her lower lashes, and she brushes it away.

He places his hand on top of hers. A current of something she doesn’t have a name for runs through her.

“What are you afraid of, Daphne?”

She breathes deeply, inhaling the clean scent of him. Then, pretending to be braver than she actually is, she leans forward, pressing a soft kiss to his lips. “I’m not afraid of anything.”

It’s a lie.

* * *

  
When he asks her again, her heart breaks.

It’s been almost a year since he entered her father’s office to ask for her hand. But the memory of him walking out again—tall and handsome in his best morning coat, defiance written in the straightness of his spine—is painfully fresh.

He was gone a week later.

She learned of it from his sister, Ginevra, when she came for afternoon tea. She’d pulled a letter from her reticule, slipping it into Daphne’s hands while her mother was busy scolding a maid.

Daphne had read the letter, tracing each word with her fingers until the lines blurred. Her father had made it clear to Fred that the fifth son of an impoverished baronet had nothing to offer his daughter. Fred had decided to find out if a decorated naval officer might.

 _Please wait for me,_ he’d written. As if she wouldn’t.

She’d called him a fool, then cried herself to sleep.

Now, her mother throws a masquerade ball, another futile attempt at catching a husband for Daphne. Astoria is already spoken for, betrothed to Draco Malfoy, the future Duke of Wiltshire, but Daphne has sabotaged her own prospects.

Repeatedly.

She dresses carefully for the ball, instructing her maids to cinch her corset so tightly she can barely draw breath. Her dress is heavy: ivory silk weighed down with thousands of pearls. Her mask, in contrast, is simple, but it hides her identity well enough.

She has no desire to be courted, this night or any other.

Hours later, she stands near the open ballroom doors, letting the cool night air whisper across her heated skin. She senses someone approach from behind and sips her champagne to cover her frown.

“Daphne.” The voice is hoarse, but achingly familiar. She’s heard it every night since he left, if only in her dreams.

The champagne flute slips from her fingers. Shatters on the parquet floor. She turns to face him.

He is still tall, still handsome, but also changed. Golden buttons and epaulettes draw her attention to his broad shoulders, and the deep blue of his uniform jacket provides a striking contrast to his hair. He’s grown a beard, trimmed it close to his face. She has a sudden impulse to peel off her glove and learn the feel of it.

“I’m not Daphne,” she lies.

“You are.” He smiles now, and the sight makes her heart clench in her chest. “I can tell.”

He leads her to the dance floor, pulling her body close as a waltz begins. His hand is warm on her waist, his gaze hot on her face. She feels dizzy.

“How did you know it was me?” she breathes.

“I’ve been halfway around the world, Daph. But I’d know you anywhere.”

They dance for what could be minutes or months, she’s not quite sure which. She feels alive again, like she’s woken from a spell, her whole body tingling as the blood hums beneath her skin. But as happy as she is, she’s also afraid.

When the music stops, she pulls away from him, leaving the ballroom and running up the wide marble steps. She hears his footsteps behind her, but doesn’t stop until she’s inside her bedchamber.

He freezes in her doorway, but she grabs him by the front of his jacket and pulls him across the threshold.

“You left,” she says. An accusation.

“I had to,” he says. A plea for understanding.

“You came back.” An exoneration.

“I _had_ to.” A confession.

She doesn’t know who moves first, but they meet in a tangle of hands and mouths. Greedy fingers pull at laces and buttons. Questing lips explore the line of a throat, the curve of a shoulder.

He pulls her mask off, fingers gentle and breath shaky. She reaches for him, trembling at the realization that she’s never wanted to marry him to save her from someone else.

She’s always wanted to marry him because he’s _hers._

And she wants to be his.

She gathers his shirt in her hands, pulling it free of his trousers. She threads her fingers through his ginger waves, pulling them free of his queue. Then she turns, allowing his nimble fingers to dance down the buttons of her dress before pulling him onto the bed.

He is careful with her. He takes his time, kissing her sweetly through the brief discomfort, whispering to her until happy tears leak from the corners of her eyes and wet her pillow. Until her breathing changes, moving past pain and into pleasure.

After, he holds her close. She lays her head on his chest, comforted by the sound of his heartbeat beneath her ear. Moonlight shines through the limbs of the birch trees outside her window, casting an ethereal glow over them both.

They talk until dawn streaks across the horizon. Fred tells her of his time in the Royal Navy, of how hard he’s worked to be worthy of her. She tries to argue with him, tell him that he always _has_ been worthy, but he kisses the words from her lips. He vows to return again as soon as he can. To marry her, to protect her, to love her.

When the first rays of sunlight creep through her curtains, he rises reluctantly. He must head back to London, then to sea.

When he gathers her into his arms, she clutches him tightly, shivering despite the warmth of his body.

He buries his face in her hair, presses his lips against the skin of her neck. “What are you afraid of, Daph?”

“I’m afraid of losing you.”

It’s the truth.

* * *

  
He doesn’t ask again. He can’t; he’s across an ocean, fighting a war.

She knows little of the world, but she’s always been bright. She feels the changes in her body, notices when her courses are late.

She tells Astoria everything.

“Of course you do,” Astoria says when Daphne confesses that she loves him. “You always have.”

Astoria becomes her champion.

When Daphne wakes in the night, drenched in sweat from vivid nightmares—Fred is lost at sea, stranded on a deserted island, blown to bits by an enemy’s cannon—Astoria dries her tears and holds her hand.

When she waits by the door every morning, desperate for a letter from Fred to quiet her fears, to affirm that he is alive and well, Astoria waits nearby, ready to reassure her that there will be a letter tomorrow.

When she bleeds in her fourth month, dropping to her knees and clutching her belly, sobbing at the thought of losing this piece of Fred, perhaps the only piece she’ll ever truly have, Astoria puts her to bed, then rides into town to fetch the doctor.

The baby is fine. But Daphne must rest, and the duke must be told. Astoria stands defiantly by Daphne’s bedside, unflinching in the face of their father’s anger. When he demands that Daphne marry immediately, as he will not be humiliated by a bastard grandchild, Astoria lifts her chin. “I agree, Your Grace. One bastard in the family is more than enough.”

Daphne languishes in bed, unable to find comfort in books or needlepoint, growing more and more certain that she will never see Fred again. She’s afraid of everything: that her father will marry her off to someone without her consent, that Fred will die without ever knowing that she loves him, that their baby will never meet its father.

She wakes from a fitful sleep one afternoon in her eighth month of pregnancy, blinking groggily at the sound of raised voices in the hallway. Then the door flies open and Fred is there, followed closely by Astoria.

He crosses the room to her, drops to his knees by her bedside. He’s exhausted: face haggard and eyes bloodshot.

Daphne thinks he’s never looked more handsome.

He takes her hands, kisses them reverently. Asks, “May I?” in a voice gone hoarse with emotion.

She nods, and he presses his cheek to the swell of her stomach. He whispers to their baby, and she feels his tears soak through her cotton nightgown. When he lifts his head again, he looks ready to fight another war—and win.

They are married the next day. He wears his uniform, she wears a simple gown of white cotton. He picks her a posy of roses and edelweiss, tied with one of her hair ribbons.

Her mother bribes the magistrate handsomely to date the marriage license nine months earlier. Astoria stands at Daphne’s bedside, weeping openly as Fred slips a simple gold band onto Daphne’s finger. Her father scowls at the floor, furious but resigned to have a Lieutenant Commander in the Royal Navy for a son-in-law.

They name their daughter Victoria. She has her father’s ginger hair and her mother’s green eyes. After she’s born, they move to a small country estate in Wiltshire, within walking distance of Astoria’s new home.

Daphne sits beneath a willow tree, eyes closed, basking in the sunlight filtering through the branches and the sounds of her husband and child playing on a nearby blanket. She makes a silent vow to fill their home with love, and noise, and enough children to rival all the other Weasleys.

A hand suddenly grasps her bare foot, startling her. She opens her eyes to see that it’s Victoria, held aloft by her papa and drooling happily.

“What are you afraid of, Daphne?” Fred says, his teasing smile warming her more than the sun.

She smiles back, pulling their daughter into her arms. “I’m not afraid of anything.”

It’s the truth.


End file.
